King Lear Flashcards
L meantime we shall…
…express our darker purpose
L which of you shall we say…
…doth love us most
L here I disclaim…
…all my paternal care
L as a stranger…
…to my heart
L come not between…
…the dragon and his wrath
L than on a wretch…
…whom nature is ashamed
L by the power…
…that made me
L better thou hadn’t not been born…
…than not t’have pleased me better
L I have perceived a most faint neglect of late, which I have rather blamed…
…as mine own jealous curiosity than as a very pretence and purpose of unkindness
L does anyone know me? This is not Lear. Does Lear walk…
…thus? Speak thus? Where are his eyes?
L either his notion weakens…
…or his discernings are lethargied
L ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend, more hideous…
…when thou show’st thee in a child than the see monster!
L beat at this gate that…
…let thy folly in and thy dear judgement out
L how ugly didst…
…thou in Cordelia show
L oh Lear, Lear, Lear….
…he strikes his head
K my life I never held but as a pawn to wage against…
…thine enemies; ne’er feared to lose it, thy safety being motive
K see…
…better Lear
K a very honest hearted…
…fellow and as poor as the King
K that such a slave as this…
…should wear a sword but no honesty
K sir, I am too…
…old to learn
K Fortune, good night; smile once…
…more; turn thy wheel
K thou our or heaven’s benediction…
…com’st the warm sun
K nothing almost sees…
…miracles but misery
K reserve thy state, and in thy best consideration…
…check this hideous rashness
G I love you more…
…than word can wield the matter
G dearer than…
…eyesight, space and liberty
G you see how full of…
…changes his ages is
G idle old man, that still would…
…manage those authorities that he hath given away
G he always loved…
…our sister most, and with what poor judgement he hath now cast her off appears too grossly
G old fools are babes again and must be used…
…with cheeks as flatteries, when they are seen abused
G as you are old and…
…reverend, should be wise
C I cannot heave my heart into my mouth. I love…
…your majesty according to my bond. No more nor less
C no unchaste…
…action or dishonoured step
C such a tongue that I am glad I have not…
…though not to have it hath cost me your liking
C the jewels of our father…
…with washed eyes
Gl who is yet no…
…dearer in my account
Gl these late eclipses…
…in the sun and moon portend no good to us
Gl though the wisdom…
…of nature can reason it thus and thus
Gl we have seen…
…the best of our time
Gl Loyal and natural boy…
…I’ll work the means to make thee capable
Edm whereof should I…
…stand in the plague of custom
Edm and permit the…
…curiosity of nations to deprive me
Edm why bastard?…
…wherefore base?
Edm when my dimensions are as well…
…compact, my mind as generous and my shape as true
Edm this is the excellent froppery or the world…
…that when we are sick in fortune, often the surfeits of our own behaviour behaviour we make guilty of our disasters, the sun, the moon and stars
Edm by an enforced…
…obedience of planetary influence
Edm whose nature is so …
…far from doing harms
Edm a credulous father…
…and a brother noble
Edm on whose foolish honesty…
…my practices ride easy
Edm Letter: this policy and reverence of age makes the world…
…bitter to the best of our times, keep our fortunes from us till our olderes cannot relish them
Edm how manifold and strong…
…a bond the child was bound to the father
Edm let me, if not by birth…
…have lands by wit
Edm I will persever in my course of…
…loyalty, though the conflict be sore between that and my blood
Edm how loothly opposite I…
…stood to his unnatural purpose
Edm most savage…
…and unnatural!
Edm the younger rises…
…when the old doth fall
Edm how malicious is my fortune…
…that I must repent to be just!
Gl thou say’st the King…
…grows mad
Gl oh madam my old heart…
…is cracked, it’s cracked
Gl the grief hath…
…crazed my wits
L Tis our fast intent to shake all the cares and business…
…from our age, conferring them on younger strengths, while we unburthened crawl toward death
Fool why this fellow has banished two on’s…
…daughters and did the third a blessing against his will
Fool dost thou know the difference my boy…
…between a bitter fool and a sweet one
Fool thou hadst little wit…
…in thy bald crown when thou gav’st thy golden one away
Fool for wise men are…
…grown foppish
Fool if I gave them all my living…
…I’d keep my coxcombs myself
Fool thou wast a pretty fellow…
…when thou hast no need to care for her frowning
Fool thou hast pared thy wit…
…o’th’both wides and left nothing i’th’middle
Fool he that keeps nor crust or crumb…
…weary of all shall want some
Fool the hedge sparrow fed the…
…cuckoo so long that it had it head bit off by it young
Fool that’s a shealed…
…peascod
Fool Lear’s…
…shadow
Fool may not an ass know…
…when the cart draws the horse
Fool which they will make…
…an obedient father
Fool thou should’st not have…
…been old till thou hadst been wise
Fool Fortune, that arrant whore…
…ne’er turns the key to the poor
Fool fathers that wear rags do make…
…their children blind, but fathers that bear bags shall see their children kind
Fool let go thy hold when a great wheel…
…runs down a hill, lest it break thy neck with following
Fool that sir which serves and seeks for gain, and follows but for…
…form, will pack when it begins to rain, and leave thee in the storm
L suspend thy purpose; if thou…
…didst intent to make this creature fruitful
L how sharper than a…
…serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child
L Tis worse than murder…
…to do upon respect such violent outrage
L thou shall find that I’ll resume thy shape…
…which thou dost think I have cast off forever
L we are not ourselves, when nature…
…being oppressed, commands the mind to suffer with the body
L infirmity doth still neglect…
…all office whereto our health is bound
L sharp-to other unkindness…
…like a vulture
L no, rather I abjure all roofs, and choose to be age against…
…the enimity o’th’both to be a comrade with the wold and owl
L thou better know’st the offices…
…of nature, bond of childhood, effects of courtesy, dues of ingratitude
L but yet thou art still my flesh, my blood…
…my daughter-or rather a disease that’s in my flesh
L thou art a boil, a plague-sore or…
…embossed carbuncle in my corrupted blood
L thy half o’th’kingdom hast thou…
…not forgot, wherin I thee endowed
L I gave…
…you all-
L these wicked creatures yet do I look well….
…favoured when others are more wicked
L not being the worst stands…
…in some rank of praise
L I’ll go with thee. Thy fifty yet doth…
…double five-and-twenty, and thou art twice her love
A how far your eyes may pierce…
…I cannot tell; striving to do better, oft we mar what’s well
Corn Edmund I hear that you…
…have shown your father a child-like offence
Corn whose virtue and obedience…
…doth this instant so much commend itself
Corn natures of such deep trust…
…we shall much need
Edg my face I’ll grime with filth, blanket my loins…
…elf all my hair in knots, and with presented nakedness outface the winds and persecutions of the sky
Edg who hath had three…
…suits to his back, six shirts to his body
Edg my tears begin to take this…
…part so much, they mar my counterfeiting
Edg when we our betters see bearing our woes…
…we scarcely think our miseries out foes
Edg who alone suffers…
…suffers most i’th’mind
Edg how light and portable my pain seems…
…now, when that which makes the bend makes the king bow
R oh sir…
…you are old
R nature in you stands…
…on the very verge of its confine
R you should be ruled and led by…
…some discretion that discerns your state better than you yourself
R Tis the infirmity of…
…his age; yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself
R I pray you father, being…
…weak, seem so
R I entreat you…
…to bring but five-and-twenty
R and in good…
…time you gave it
R what need…
…one?
L oh reason…
…not the need!
G Tis his own blame: hath put…
…himself from rest, and must needs taste his folly
R to wilful men in the injuries that…
…they themselves procure must be their school masters
Corn thou well we may not pass…
…upon his life without the form of justice, yet our power shall do a court’sy to our wrath
Corn out vild…
…jelly!
Corn throw this slave…
…upon the dung hill
Gl Edmund, enkindle all the sparks of nature…
…to quit this horrid act
Gl oh, my…
…follies!
Gl I have no way and therefore…
…want no eyes, I stumbled when I saw
Gl ful oft, Tis seen our means secure us…
…and our mere defects secure our commodities
Gl which made me think…
…a man a worm
Gl as flies to wanton boys…
…are we to the gods: they kill us for their sport
Gl Tis the time’s plague when…
…madmen lead the blind
Gl let the superfluous and lust-dieted man, that slaves your ordinance…
…that will not see because he does not feel, feel your power quickly: so distribution should undo excess, and each man have enough
Servant if she live long and in the end meet…
…the old course of death, women will all turn to monsters
Gent as pearls from…
…diamonds dropped
Gent you have seen sunshine…
…and rain at once
Gent there she shook the holy water…
…from the heavenly eyes
Edg you cannot…
…see your way
Edg oh matter and impertinency….
…mixed: Reason in madness
G it is the cowish…
…terror of his spirit that dares not undertake
G I must change arms at home and…
…give the distaff into my husband’s hands
G he’ll not feel wrongs…
…which tie him to an answer
G on the difference of man…
…and man! To thee a woman’s services are due; a fool upspurs my bed
G milk-…
…livered man
G who hast not in thy brows an eye…
…discerning thine honour from thine suffering
G may all the building in…
…my fancy pluck upon my hateful life
A thou changed and self-covered…
…thing, for shame be monster not thy feature
A proper deformity…
…shows not in the fiend so horrid as in a woman
A see thyself…
Devil
A you are not worth the dust…
…which the rude wind blows in your face!
A the nature that contemns his origin…
…cannot be bordered certain itself
A from her material sap…
…perforce must wither and come to deadly use
A wisdom and goodness to…
…the vild seem vild; filths savour but themselves
A humanity must perforce…
…prey on itself like monsters of the deep
A tigers…
…not daughters
A a father? And a gracious,aged old man…
…most barbarous, most degenerate have you madded
A if that the heavens do not their visible spirits…
…send quickly down to tame these vild offences, it will come
L I’ll see…
…their trial first
L you unnatural…
…hags
L allow not nature more…
…than nature needs, man’s life is cheap as beasts
L our basest beggars…
…are in the poorest things superfluous
L thou art a lady; if only to go warm were gorgeous…
…why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear’st, which scarcely keeps thee warm
Gent contending with…
…the fretful elements
L if it be you that stir these…
…daughters hearts against their father, fool me not so much to bear it tamely
L and let not women’s…
…weapons, water-drops, stain my man’s cheeks
Gent bids the wind blow the earth into…
…the sea, or swell the curled waters bove the main
Gent that things might…
…change or cease
Gent tears his white hair, which the…
…impetuous blasts, with eyeless rage, catch in their fury and make nothing of
Gent unbonneted…
…he runs
L all-shaking Thunder, strike flat the thick…
…roundity o’th’world, crack Nature’s moulds, all Germans spill at once that make ingrateful man
L I tax not you, you elements with unkindness…
…I never gave you Kingdom, called you children, you owe me no subscription
L here I stand your slave…
…a poor, infirm, weak and despised old man
L tremble, thou wretch that hast within…
…thee undivulged crimes unwhipped or justice
L close pent-up guilts…
…rive your concealing continents and cry these dreadful summoners grace
L I am a man…
…more sinned against than sinning
L my wits…
…begin to turn
Fool here’s a night…
…pities neither wise men or fools
Fool the man that makes his toe…
…what he his heart should make shall of corn cry woe, and turn his sleep to wake
Fool this cold night will…
…turn us all to fools and madmen
Fool he’s mad that trusts in the tameness…
…of a wolf, a horse’s health, a boy’s love, a whore’s oath
Gl there is strange…
…things toward
Gl our flesh and blood…
…my lord, is grown so vild, that it doth hate what it gets
R so white…
…and such a traitor?
R a peasant…
…stand up thus?
R let him smell…
…his way to Dover
Gl the sea with such a storm as his bare…
…head in hell-black night endured, and I’ll have buoyed up and quenched the stelled fires
Gl yet, poor old heart…
…he holp the heavens to rain
Gl but I shall see the winged…
…vengeance overtake such children
Gl in it a jewel…
…well worth a poor mans taking
K I am a gentleman…
…of blood and breeding
K from France there…
…comes a power into this scattered Kingdom
K things that love…
…night love not nights such as these
K the wrathful skies gallow the very wanderers…
…of the dark and make them keep their caves
K man’s nature…
…cannot carry th’affliction nor the fear
K more harder than the…
…stones where of tis raised
K his wits begin…
…t’unsettle
K trouble him not…
…his wits are gone
K the tyranny of the open…
…night’s too rough for nature to endure
K all the power of his wits…
…haven given way to his impatience
K oppressed nature…
…sleeps
K I’d rather…
…break mine own
K it is the Stars, the stars above us, govern our…
…conditions; else one self mate and mate could not beget such different issues
K a sovereign…
…shame elbows him
K these things sting his mind…
…so venemously that burning shame detains him from Cordelia
L the art of our necessities….
…is strange, and can make vild things precious
L but where the greater…
…is fixed, the lesser is scarce felt
L filial…
…ingratitude
L is it not as this mouth…
…should tear this hand for lifting food to’t
L when the mind’s free..
…the body’s delicate
L your old, kind…
…father, whose frank heart gave you all
L this tempest will not give me leave…
…to ponder on things would hurt me more
L poor, naked…
…wretches
L o, I have…
…ta’en too little care for this
L nothing could have subdued…
…nature to such a lowness but his unkind daughters
L expose yourself to…
…feel what wretches feel
L that thou mayst shake the…
…superflux to them, and show the heavens more just
L those pelican…
…daughters
L unaccommodated man is no more…
…but such a poor, bare forked animal
L and here’s another whose warped…
…looks proclaim what stone her heart is made on
L we’ll go to supper…
…in’th’morning
L kicked the poor king…
…her father
L is there any cause in nature…
…what makes these hard hearts?
L down from the waist they are centaurs…
…though women all above
L they are not men o’their words…
…they told me I was everything; Tis a lie- I am not ague-proof
L fie, fie, fie…
…pah, pah, pah
Gl the king..
…is mad
Gl how stiff is my vild sense that I stand…
…up and have ingenious feeling of my huge sorrows
L better I…
…were distract
Gl so should my thoughts be severed from my griefs…
…and woes by wrong imaginations lose the knowledge of themselves
K I have a journey sir…
…my master calls me
K kind and dear…
…princess
K he hates him, that would upon this rack of this tough…
…world stretch him out longer
L howl, howl, howl!…
…o you are men of stones!
L she’s gone…
…forever
L she’s dead as…
…earth
L a plague upon you, murderers…
….traitors all!
L why should a dog, a horse, a rat…
…have life and thou no breath at all?
G I had rather lose the…
…battle than that sister should loosen him and me
G for these domestic and particular…
…books are not the question here
Edg I am no less in blood…
…than thou art Edmund
Edg the gods are just and of our pleasant…
…vices make instruments to plague us
A I hold you but a…
…subject of this war, not as a brother
A half-…
…blooded fellow
A he knows…
…not what he says
A what comfort from this great…
…decay may come shall be applied
A all friend shall taste the wages of their virtue…
…and all foes the cup of their deservings
Edg but his flawed heart…
…twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief, burst seemingly
Stage direction Cordelia, leading…
…Lear by the hand
Edm to both these sisters have…
…I sworn my love
Edm each jealous…
…of the other as the stung are of the adder
Edm which of them shall I take?…
…both? One? Or neither?
Edm men are as the time is, to be…
…tender minded does not become a sword
Edm niether can be enjoyed…
…if both remain alive
Edm whose age had charms in it, whose title more…
…to pluck the common bosom on his side
Edm some good I mean…
…to do, despite of myn own age
Edm at this time…
…we sweat and bleed
Edm the wheel is come full…
…circle, I am here
Den I was contracted to them both…
…all three now marry in an instant
L we two alone will..
…sing like birds i’th’cage
L so we’ll live, and pray and sing, and tell old tales…
… And laugh at gilded butterflies
Edg I protest mauge thy strength, place, youth…
…and eminence, despite thy victor-sword and fire-new fortune, thy valour and thy heart, thou art a traitor
Edg false to thy gods…
…thy brother and thy father
Edg from the extremest upward of thy head to the…
…descent and dust below thy foot, a most toad-spotted traitor
C as mad as…
…the vexed sea
C oh you kind gods…
…cure this great breach in his abused nature!
C the’untuned and jarring senses, o wind up…
…of this child-changed father
C thy medicine on my lips…
…and let this kiss repair those violent harms that my two sisters have in thy reverence made
C no cause…
…no cause
C we are not the first who with best meaning…
…have incured the worst
R where he arrives he moves…
…all hearts agains us
R she gave strange eliads…
…and most speaking looks to noble Edmund
R I am doubtful that you…
…have been conjunct and bosomed with her
R I never shall…
…endure her
A the weight of this sad time…
…we must obey
A speak what we feel…
…not what we ought to say
A the oldest hath borne most…
…we that are young shall never see so much, nor live so long
L through rattered clothes…
…great vices to appear
L robes and furred…
…gowns hide all
L plate sin with gold…
…and in the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks
L arm it in rags, a pigmy’s…
…straw does pierce it
L I am cut…
…to th’brains
L yet you…
…see how the world goes
L a man may see how this…
…world goes with no eyes
L when we are born…
…we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools
L thou are a soul in bliss…
…but I am bound upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears do scold like molten lead
L I am a very…
…foolish, fond old man
L I fear I am not…
…in my perfect mind
Gent thou hast a daughter who redeems…
…nature from the general curse which twain have brought to her
L me thinks I should know you…
…and know this man, but I am doubtful
L for your sisters have done me wrong; you…
…have some cause, they have not
Edg a most poor man…
…made tame to Fortune’s blows
Edg by the art of known and feeling…
…sorrows, am pregnant to good pity
Edg to know our enemies…
…minds we rip their hearts
Edg oh indistinguished space…
…of woman’s will!
Edg if e’er your grace had speech…
…with man so poor, hear me one word
Edg yet I am noble…
…as the adversary
